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Party Composition: * Human Ranger 3 (Me) - I switch between Ranged and Melee. For ranged, I'm doing +6 (or +4/+4 with Rapid Shot) for 1d8+4 with my Longbow, and in melee, I'm doing +8 for 2d4+7 with my Falchion. I also have Power Attack, so, I'm usually doing 2d4+10 on a hit. * Human Rogue 3 - Dual Shortsword, Acrobatics in to place for Sneak Attack. Has fun rolling handfuls of d6s. * Halfling Sorcerer 3 - Mostly just fires off Magic Missile every round, uses Sleep occasionally * Human Cavalier 2/Paladin 1 - Charging ability and horse are irrelevant for the most part as most of our fights are in dungeons with 5 ft hallways * Half-Elf Cleric 2/Paladin 1 - Healbot I think most of the issue is that I'm really the only person in the party who cares about optimization, besides the Rogue, who I built for another player who was new to the game. I consistently outdamage the other players as it is, and I think my DM is afraid of worsening the gap. Honestly, I can see where being able to do 4d6+8 might be a concern, but when I DM, I'm always of the opinion that "If it's in the book, you can use it". Of course, I've only ever DM'd in 4e, so that might have something to do with that. I think I'm just going to have to wait until I'm at the point where I'm completely overpowered by (competent) spellcasters before I'm allowed to take the spell. 
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Aug 20, 2010 17:15
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Just memorize it and then forget about it until poo poo looks like it's going South (as it can often do suddenly in 3.*) and then whip it out.
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Aug 20, 2010 18:33
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Someone in your party is a full caster using a serious spell(Sleep). You therefore have the right to go about your business. Does he really think that increasing you damage a step is worse than ending an encounter with one spell?
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Aug 20, 2010 20:26
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Well, the spellcaster proclaimed that the APG was "broken" before the DM had gotten to look at it, so that probably poisoned her on the idea from the start, and she is generally opposed to my philosophy of "picking the the most optimum feats/spells" vs. hers of "picking fluffier choices and building a unique little snowflake", so pretty much all the choices I make are considered "overpowered"/"broken". I understand if she just wants to disallow use of the APG, but she let the Cleric take a sub-domain from it or whatever. I'm going to try and get her to actually look at the spell in the book rather than only being exposed to it through me explaining it to her, and see if that changes anything. Glad to know I'm not going crazy about these things being Not That Bad! If all else fails, I'll just c/p this thread derail and email it to her.
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Aug 20, 2010 20:45
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Yeah, I certainly wouldn't think twice about including it as-written in my game. I don't think it's a thread derail, either, since we are talking about Pathfinder.
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Aug 20, 2010 21:01
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This is exactly the sort of infuriating poo poo I hate. She can get away with being a special snowflake and choosing whatever strikes her fancy because she has chosen a class where she can easily out pace you without paying any attention to the way she builds her character. Additionally, why does it matter what another player thinks? What does the GM think? Or am I just getting confused with the reuse of the pronoun "she" here?
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Aug 20, 2010 21:55
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The DM (she) has not yet read the APG, as far as I know. Her only knowledge of it comes from the sorcerer in our group, who proclaims every non-core book in every system we play "broken" (This includes stuff like the "_____ Power" series in 4e). It is her first time DMing, so I guess she is just relying on his opinion to determine this. I'm hoping to get a copy of it into her hands this weekend so she can form an opinion for herself. The last campaign the DM and I were both players in was 3.5. I was a Level 13 Vow of Poverty Druid with a Fleshraker Dinosaur animal companion. She was a Ranger 6/Paladin 7 who was built solely around the gimmick of Smiting Evil at range. Klungar fucked around with this message at 22:14 on Aug 20, 2010 |
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Aug 20, 2010 22:12
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Point the GM at the PFSRD: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ It's got all the stuff from the APG available so she can peruse it herself.
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Aug 20, 2010 22:15
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Tolan posted:Point the GM at the PFSRD: http://www.d20pfsrd.com/ Are feats and spells up yet? We use that all the time, and I personally wasn't able to find them on there.
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Aug 20, 2010 22:17
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Klungar posted:Are feats and spells up yet? We use that all the time, and I personally wasn't able to find them on there. Looks like spells + class stuff are up, but feats are still not there.
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Aug 20, 2010 22:36
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Tolan posted:Looks like spells + class stuff are up, but feats are still not there. They're on the database but not on the html pages. So if you use the spells database (the google doc, basically) then you should find all the APG spells but if you click on "All Spells" on the sidebar you won't find any of them.
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Aug 20, 2010 23:40
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Klungar posted:Well, the spellcaster proclaimed that the APG was "broken" before the DM had gotten to look at it, so that probably poisoned her on the idea from the start, and she is generally opposed to my philosophy of "picking the the most optimum feats/spells" vs. hers of "picking fluffier choices and building a unique little snowflake", so pretty much all the choices I make are considered "overpowered"/"broken". I understand if she just wants to disallow use of the APG, but she let the Cleric take a sub-domain from it or whatever. I'm going to try and get her to actually look at the spell in the book rather than only being exposed to it through me explaining it to her, and see if that changes anything. Glad to know I'm not going crazy about these things being Not That Bad! If all else fails, I'll just c/p this thread derail and email it to her. What would be an example of a "fluffier choice" for comparison?
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Aug 20, 2010 23:47
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counterspin posted:This is exactly the sort of infuriating poo poo I hate. She can get away with being a special snowflake and choosing whatever strikes her fancy because she has chosen a class where she can easily out pace you without paying any attention to the way she builds her character. Well, from the description of their playstyles he gave it sounds like the people playing good classes are really bad, so that might balance it a bit. 
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Aug 21, 2010 00:02
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Dr. Tough posted:What would be an example of a "fluffier choice" for comparison? My DM has on more than one occasion non-ironically recommended taking Craft as a skill, people multiclassing into Paladin because "My god will like it!", playing a Paladin with a bow in 3.5... nothing major, just nothing the optimizer in me would ever consider. Before starting, I usually try to plan out a 1-20/30 outline of my character, and usually don't deviate too much from that. Different play styles, but by focusing on combat I definitely help make it possible for the other guys to do their "fun" stuff.
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Aug 21, 2010 00:38
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Klungar posted:My DM has on more than one occasion non-ironically recommended taking Craft as a skill, people multiclassing into Paladin because "My god will like it!", playing a Paladin with a bow in 3.5... nothing major, just nothing the optimizer in me would ever consider. Before starting, I usually try to plan out a 1-20/30 outline of my character, and usually don't deviate too much from that. Different play styles, but by focusing on combat I definitely help make it possible for the other guys to do their "fun" stuff. Well paladin with a bow is a little odd, but I don't see anything wrong with someone taking craft. Maybe their character has an actual job that they do when they're not murdering goblins. Or maybe carpentry (or whatever) is a serious hobby for them. If they want to multi-class into paladin to placate their patron deity that could be an interesting oppurtunity for some side questing. If people are branching out from pure combat, your DM should make an effort to lower the difficulty of the encounters.
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Aug 21, 2010 00:51
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Dr. Tough posted:Well paladin with a bow is a little odd, but I don't see anything wrong with someone taking craft. Maybe their character has an actual job that they do when they're not murdering goblins. Or maybe carpentry (or whatever) is a serious hobby for them. If they want to multi-class into paladin to placate their patron deity that could be an interesting oppurtunity for some side questing. If people are branching out from pure combat, your DM should make an effort to lower the difficulty of the encounters. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. I'm just saying the rest of the players are taking non-combat-optimal skills/feats because they'd rather take skills/feats that add to their character and influence the story, which is their choice and their right. The problem is, my choices are being limited because I strengthen my character's backstory and characterization through the way I act as them and the way they interact with the other players, and leave my skills/feats for making me more effective in combat. In my world, my character can be a carpenter without having to waste ranks in Craft: Carpentry. As they saying goes, "Keep loving that dog!" Oh, and we are running through Rise of the Runelords, and if anything, my DM is making the encounters more difficult, not less.
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Aug 21, 2010 01:10
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Dr. Tough posted:Well paladin with a bow is a little odd, but I don't see anything wrong with someone taking craft. Maybe their character has an actual job that they do when they're not murdering goblins. Or maybe carpentry (or whatever) is a serious hobby for them. If they want to multi-class into paladin to placate their patron deity that could be an interesting oppurtunity for some side questing. If people are branching out from pure combat, your DM should make an effort to lower the difficulty of the encounters. skill points are way too critical and fiddly if you want to make certain kinds of prestige classes to gently caress around with craft or profession or whatever
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Aug 21, 2010 02:25
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Danhenge posted:skill points are way too critical and fiddly if you want to make certain kinds of prestige classes to gently caress around with craft or profession or whatever Really? I've never done much optimization-wise, what kinds are those? I always thought skills were the easy part of things.
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Aug 21, 2010 02:33
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We've had to ban adamantium picks in my game because their use in conjunction with Craft(Mining) was making large parts of dungeons trivial.
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Aug 21, 2010 02:36
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Klungar posted:I'm not saying there is anything wrong with that. I'm just saying the rest of the players are taking non-combat-optimal skills/feats because they'd rather take skills/feats that add to their character and influence the story, which is their choice and their right. The problem is, my choices are being limited because I strengthen my character's backstory and characterization through the way I act as them and the way they interact with the other players, and leave my skills/feats for making me more effective in combat. In my world, my character can be a carpenter without having to waste ranks in Craft: Carpentry. As they saying goes, "Keep loving that dog!" You just need a better DM. If people want to make combat light characters it's probably not a good idea to run a combat heavy game (I'm not really familiar with Rise of the Runelords). When I GM I make sure to tell the players "this game will be combat heavy" or "this game will be mostly intrigue" or "make sure your characters are willing to do X" to make sure that this disconnect doesn't occur. And I hate to get into an argument about these kind of details, but if you told me that your character was a carpenter I would make you take at least couple points in Craft: Carpentry. It would be like saying that a character was a cat burglar but not taking stealth or climb.
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Aug 21, 2010 02:44
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Idran posted:Really? I've never done much optimization-wise, what kinds are those? I always thought skills were the easy part of things. Well to be honest those were mostly from the Complete line of books. Dunno how bad pathfinder has it.
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Aug 21, 2010 02:45
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Danhenge posted:Well to be honest those were mostly from the Complete line of books. Dunno how bad pathfinder has it. Oh, that'd be why, I never looked really heavily at those back in 3.5. How bad could they get?
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Aug 21, 2010 02:52
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Dr. Tough posted:You just need a better DM. If people want to make combat light characters it's probably not a good idea to run a combat heavy game (I'm not really familiar with Rise of the Runelords). When I GM I make sure to tell the players "this game will be combat heavy" or "this game will be mostly intrigue" or "make sure your characters are willing to do X" to make sure that this disconnect doesn't occur. And I hate to get into an argument about these kind of details, but if you told me that your character was a carpenter I would make you take at least couple points in Craft: Carpentry. It would be like saying that a character was a cat burglar but not taking stealth or climb. So what you're saying is you would punish players for saying their character used to be a carpenter? This right here is a good example of why having things like "craft: carpentry" which cost skill points is a bad idea.
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Aug 21, 2010 03:13
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^^^ I often give my players 4 or 5 "free" skill points that they are allowed to put into craft or profession skills if they are constantly role-playing themselves doing such during long bouts of downtime. They basically started "Shackled City" and "Age of Worms" as working-class chumps and I let them fill in a non-combat skill to max for free when they generated characters. What's really funny is that my experience with Paizo AP's is that they are massively deadly sometimes and have given my party of mostly optimizers a run for their money quite often. I can't count the number of times while playing "Age of Worms" that the party got cocky and then someone died because they walked into another ambush. I mean these are the guys then ended an Adventure Path with a final boss that had a divine blast that could hit someone two miles away. He never really gets a chance to use it, but the fact that it's an option made me chuckle. Anonymous Zebra fucked around with this message at 03:22 on Aug 21, 2010 |
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Aug 21, 2010 03:19
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:So what you're saying is you would punish players for saying their character used to be a carpenter? This right here is a good example of why having things like "craft: carpentry" which cost skill points is a bad idea. I don't see how that would be punishment, all it takes is a couple points. I'd even make sure to give them opportunities to use it so they don't feel like they "wasted" it.
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Aug 21, 2010 03:34
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Dr. Tough posted:I don't see how that would be punishment, all it takes is a couple points. I'd even make sure to give them opportunities to use it so they don't feel like they "wasted" it. If you can't see how having to spend skill points on carpentry instead of, like, any other skill is a penalty then I don't even know
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Aug 21, 2010 04:09
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Jeb Bush 2012 posted:If you can't see how having to spend skill points on carpentry instead of, like, any other skill is a penalty then I don't even know Your character is not going to implode because you had to put a couple points into craft instead of ride or whatever. If people have a problem with this then they shouldn't put things like that into their background. Or they should play in less difficult campaigns where their survival doesn't depend on that extra bluff point.
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Aug 21, 2010 04:31
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Yeah, particularly for classes in 3.5 with 2+Int skill points (like, fighters). Skill points are "welp, that's the skill I'm raising this level!" affair for them.
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Aug 21, 2010 04:33
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Dr. Tough posted:Your character is not going to implode because you had to put a couple points into craft instead of ride or whatever. If people have a problem with this then they shouldn't put things like that into their background. Or they should play in less difficult campaigns where their survival doesn't depend on that extra bluff point. I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. At early levels every skill point counts and can be a matter of life or death when it comes to not falling off a bridge over a 1,000 foot deep gorge, or successfully turning off a trap that might kill your rogue. Not to mention that several classes only get a few skill points to work with and can have these problems even at the high levels. Someone being punished for "putting things like that into their background" is a fun way to ruin the charm of a game and make your players less likely to even both coming up with a character history. Just let your player take 5 free points of craft (baskets) and relax with the knowledge that having points in that skill will never make them unbalanced in combat nor come close to making them any meaningful amount of extra cash.
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Aug 21, 2010 04:46
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Anonymous Zebra posted:I'm going to have to disagree with you on this one. At early levels every skill point counts and can be a matter of life or death when it comes to not falling off a bridge over a 1,000 foot deep gorge, or successfully turning off a trap that might kill your rogue. Not to mention that several classes only get a few skill points to work with and can have these problems even at the high levels. Well I should point out something right now that is probably important to this discussion. When I DM people's characters aren't really in danger of dying. They can only die in one of three ways: Choosing to kill their character, dying at the hand of the villain, or through their own sheer stupidity. Now that's not to say that the game can't be challenging or that they can't be punished for failure. But my philosophy is that the characters should drive the plot forward so having them die from chasms wouldn't jive with that. So, putting a couple points in baskets isn't really a big deal in my group. I wish more people ran things that way. Now obviously not everyone sees it that way, thus people seem to get a little defensive of their skill points.
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Aug 21, 2010 04:57
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Uh, if the party's 18 int wizard with 5 ranks in alchemy rolls a 6 or better three weeks in a row they'll finish a flask of acid in that time. I'm not sure they really earned that. edit: actually i just did the math and it's probably more like four weeks. i guess that might be ok Danhenge fucked around with this message at 05:04 on Aug 21, 2010 |
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Aug 21, 2010 04:58
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I don't really get the argument that Craft is a useless skill. If you take it in a stupid area that can't possibly ever matter then it's your own fault. With a set of appropriate artisan's tools players can and should find creative ways to use their Craft skills if they chose to take any. Party can't lift or move some heavy object? Why not build some scaffolding and pullies with your Craft(Carpentry) and maybe some Knowledge(Engineering)? A character with enough ranks in craft(blacksmith) can save the party gold on weapons and armor, probably repair some sundered equipment, and even turn a profit without ripping off other party members. Throw on the Master Craftsman feat at level 5 and you've got a very useful crafts build. Obviously a fighter who spends one of his 2 (or possibly less if he has low int) skill points on craft doesn't have that skill point for something that is probably more frequently useful. But fighters are typically military types and not prone to having a great deal of artisanship in their backgrounds. Why would you make a skill-intensive fighter build in the first place?
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Aug 21, 2010 05:17
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grah posted:I don't really get the argument that Craft is a useless skill. If you take it in a stupid area that can't possibly ever matter then it's your own fault. With a set of appropriate artisan's tools players can and should find creative ways to use their Craft skills if they chose to take any. Party can't lift or move some heavy object? Why not build some scaffolding and pullies with your Craft(Carpentry) and maybe some Knowledge(Engineering)? A character with enough ranks in craft(blacksmith) can save the party gold on weapons and armor, probably repair some sundered equipment, and even turn a profit without ripping off other party members. Throw on the Master Craftsman feat at level 5 and you've got a very useful crafts build. It's actually not that building stuff is useless, even non-magical, non-alchemical things, on the contrary, building stuff is ridiculously useful, as any wizard with Fabricate, Minor/Major Creation and Polymorph Any Object would likely attest to. The thing is, crafting takes forever. Building in increments of weeks and silver pieces when adventuring is generally days or hours critical, and works in gold pieces means that without magic the whole party will be sitting there for a while for the skill to be exercised without a good DM. It's easier by far at later levels to buy the things you'd need and pack it in extradimensional storage, or just get the spellcasters to fix it. Letting mundane construction times scale more quickly with skill would probably help a lot. Master Craftsman, on the other hand is a great idea, except it probably could have been just as well to make Craft skills an alternate prereq for crafting feats instead of needing to blow another feat on it.
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Aug 21, 2010 08:11
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Dr. Tough posted:I don't see how that would be punishment, all it takes is a couple points. I'd even make sure to give them opportunities to use it so they don't feel like they "wasted" it. what the gently caress is this anyway ''okay, so you've felled the epic dragon, but the baron is not impressed. he says to truely become the heroes of legend, you must beat him in a basket weaving competition!'' all eyes turn to falrgrin the fighter and his two points in weaving. it was time.
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Aug 22, 2010 00:33
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I'm playing Pathfinder despite my 4.0 protests in my college gamers guild cause it was either that or Shadowrun again. As per usual no one wanted to be the Cleric so it falls to me. I need some assistance in optimization needs to be a dwarf though for the story I wanna tell.
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Aug 26, 2010 14:20
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blakout posted:I'm playing Pathfinder despite my 4.0 protests in my college gamers guild cause it was either that or Shadowrun again. As per usual no one wanted to be the Cleric so it falls to me. I need some assistance in optimization needs to be a dwarf though for the story I wanna tell. What, just being a cleric isn't broken enough for you?
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Aug 26, 2010 14:32
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Well, even if you ask, a few basic clues like party makeup, game premise and level would help. Clerics are fairly strong anyway, so it's pretty hard to do it wrong entirely.
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Aug 26, 2010 15:03
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We have a Pali Rogue and Wizard/Arcane Archer possibly. Sorry I was being vague its just a longass time since I have played 3.5 and the first time I've played PF.
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Aug 26, 2010 15:21
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blakout posted:I'm playing Pathfinder despite my 4.0 protests in my college gamers guild cause it was either that or Shadowrun again. As per usual no one wanted to be the Cleric so it falls to me. I need some assistance in optimization needs to be a dwarf though for the story I wanna tell. Check out this and this for tips.
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Aug 26, 2010 15:27
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Skip the healing spells and go straight for as much offense as you can grab, mixing in any stronger debuffs that come across your spell list. Anything that removes an enemy from a fight is awesome. Also, when you get to the save or dies (Planeshift represent!) get those. Which is of course applicable advice for any full caster of any level, but I'm gonna hand it out anyway.
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Aug 26, 2010 15:38
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